MORDECAI HOMAN. He has circumnavigated the globe many times, and has experienced the frozen excitement furnished by the whale fisheries in the bleak Arctic. He has seen London in its glory, and Paris in its beauty; is acquainted with the ups and downs of mining life, and familiar with the wild scenes in Australian mines and jungles. He visited California during the gold excitement, when the country swarmed with desperate men and loose characters of all sorts, nations and color; when murdering, robbing, fighting, and gambling was the universal pastime, and mining the occupation. He has met desperate men on the sea and on the land, and mingled with murderers, counterfeiters, forgers, and villainous people of all nations, with some of the most depraved characters that ever sailed the seas or stalked the land. Not by taste or preference did lie associate with villains and hardened men, but as a natural consequence of an adventurous life. When whaling was a remunerative business he made a number of voyages to the frozen North; but the fever soon' subsided, and his roving disposition allured him into newer fields of adventure. When but seventeen years old he sailed for the icy seas; but later in life we see him.
Mordecai labored in the
mountains a number of years, when he was stricken down
with the small-pox in a most malignant form. He arose from his couch of misery emaciated and feeble but kind hands and kinder hearts came to his succor, and his wasted form grew robust and strong. After his illness, being unable to immediately enter the mines in consequence of physical prostration, be "kept" store for the miners, &c., after which he sailed for Australia. There be worked in the vein a period, going all through the Australian mines, and remaining there about eleven months, when he sailed down the coast of Chili to Valparaiso. There he again shipped in the clipper ship Mischief, and set sail for China. The ship touched at San Francisco, where Mordecai met an old friend and was induced to again enter the mines.
By his efforts he had amassed a snug little fortune, and began packing his provisions and effects from the mountains toward Trinidad. He had packed and remained in an Indian encampment one night. The Indians appeared friendly, and gave him much salmon and other tokens of friendship. The encampment was composed of fifteen hundred warriors, who, a few days after, gathered in councils of war. Mordecai saw that an ominous cloud was gathering along the frontier, and, combined with the influences and opinions of prominent leaders, the company immediately started down the coast toward Trinidad. On the march they came upon
and determined to encamp near rich diggings, although
opposed by those who were aware of the intended Indian
revolution and declaration of war. Mordecai not only was
afflicted by the murdering of his partners, but lost
seventy-five hundred dollars in gold dust, seven pack
mules, and fifteen hundred pounds of provisions. He was rescued, but died
soon after. The miners then consolidated and moved
directly toward Trinidad. They met a body of soldiers on
the march up the mountains, who were sent to their aid
simultaneously with the first war -whoop. The incidents connected with his participation in the Indian war are to numerous to record. He assisted in demolishing Indian villages, destroying their crops, &c., and then returned with the band to Trinidad, and thence to San Francisco. In 1856 he sailed for his Island home, having passed seven years in the wilds of California and Australia; meeting success and failure, sickness and exposure; and passing through adventures and escapes that would fill a volume of thrilling events. PERSONAL He is decidedly abrupt and unceremonious in his speech; but if he stumbles with his tongue, it is the head that's wrong, and not the heart that goes astray." |